“My celly was locked up for 20 years before he was in jail with me. He got locked up again for beating up somebody who was talking shit at a bus station.
The guy he beat up was talking to someone else on a bluetooth headset.”
“My best friend got out in January after twelve years. He can’t handle the awesomeness of Netflix. Also booking shit online. I’m still teaching him Amazon. Oh and you pick your seat at the movie theater…I’m not really over that yet either.”
“I remember working at McDonald’s and having an ex convict come in and being outraged at the prices. A Big Mac was twice the price he was used to.”
“In like 2015 I met a guy who went to jail in 1997 and had just got out. The big thing he noticed was that there weren’t as many large groups of youth out and about like when he was a kid. He said the saddest thing he saw was going to the local park and seeing almost nobody there at 6pm, when he went in the 90s there were typically 50-60 young people hanging out skating around and socializing.
I suppose the way we socialize has changed so much since then. Back then the only way you could socialize was by leaving your house and hanging out with friends, even doing nothing with friends was preferable to just hanging out inside, today people don’t do that as much.”
“Saw a dude on the news who’d been in jail for like, 50 or 60 years. He said the craziest thing was seeing all the crazy colored Gatorades. That and he thought everyone was an FBI agent because of their earbuds.”
“I was told a story by this ex felon who had a cell mate that finally got released after 30+ years. He gave the guy his phone number, because he knew that transitioning into the real world would be rough. Later, he got a call from his cell mate at a grocery store in a corner crying because the selection was too much for him to handle. Mostly the different varieties of items, different brands have grown in the past 30+ years.
Also, the use of self-checkout machines can be confusing.”
“I worked with a lot of felons. One guy had been in prison for 38 years. He said everything is different. The cars are so different and quiet. Everyone is on their phones. The phones are weird. People have phones in their pockets.”
“My dad is a prison chaplain. One of his inmates had been in for about 30 years, and got out last year. My dad got a call from him a few days later: ‘Chap! Did you know they have toilets that flush themselves?!?!'”
“I did have a lengthy phone call with an ex-con at work once where I went in circles trying to explain the concept of attachments to emails. I also had to explain that fax and email were separate things.”
“Went to jail in 1995, came out in 2013.
Obviously smartphones and whatnot. But the biggest difference to me is simply that I rarely see kids outside. Anyone who remembers the 80s and 90s remembers that past 5pm, there were groups of youth aging 16-28 literally roaming everywhere.
Another thing is crime. Crime used to be everywhere. Even normal, well-to-do people knew about and were often even slightly engaged in some form of crime. They often had siblings that were into crime, or knew neighbors who were into it. If you ever wanted anything ‘extra’ done that was illegal there was always guys you could go to. Then there was your sort of underground life. Almost everyone had one, or knew plenty of people that were into it. I remember as a youth, me and my friends used to sell loosie cigarettes and transport stolen goods from store to store for this seedy Italian guy on our block. In my early 20s we used to help find guys to pay off landlords to let us throw parties on their rooftops. Everyone did this sort of stuff. That was considered kind of normal youth stuff back then. Today that would seem like something only a serious criminal would do. Even our parents had their ‘dealings’ with shady characters.
Those are really the two biggest changes I’ve noticed.”
“My mother just got released after a 15 year prison sentence. The weirdest thing to her is the cell phones. She thinks it’s crazy that everyone is attached at the hip to their phones. And that you can look anything up in an instant.
She also thinks it’s wild that my brothers and I can play games together and not be in the same house. The first time she called and I told her that I was playing Destiny 2 with my brothers, she thought they were actually in the living room with me. It still freaks her out that we live in different states and can play together.”
“I was in for 3 days back in ’99. Last meal before I went in, McRib. Got out, McRib was gone.”
“I used to work in a prison, I recall a lifer going out for the day and being mind blown by ATMs and the moving conveyor belts at the supermarket.”
“I went to rehab a few years ago and one of the guys there with me just got out of prison after a 20 year sentence for being a huge meth dealer. He said cellphones blew his mind and he’s so confused about gas pumps now because of the option to pay with cards at the pump and how different they look.”
“10 years ago I was at one of those employment centers, which ended up basically being an internet cafe where you use the computers to job search, create resumes, etc. I sat down by an older gentleman who just stared into the screen with his hands in his lap. An employee came by and asked if he needed help, which he agreed and stated he had been incarcerated for like 30 years and had never used a computer. She sat down and told him to use the mouse to move the cursor to an icon etc. This dude gave the mouse a sharp jab with his finger like he was pushing an elevator button, that slid the mouse across the mouse pad and onto the table. The look on the lady’s face was priceless when she realized she had to teach this guy how to use a computer from ground fucking zero. She was puzzled where to even begin.”
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